The Court of Criminal Appeal has substituted a seven-year prison sentence for Kieran Ryan after a further hearing to determine the proper sentence for a serious firearms offence.
In a supplemental judgment delivered on 17 July 2014, the court said its earlier judgment had identified two errors of principle in the sentencing process. It had found that the trial judge’s 12-year starting point, before mitigation, was excessive. The offence fell towards the top of the middle range of severity or the bottom of the most serious range, for which the court considered a starting point of nine to 10 years appropriate.
The court had also considered the original one-third reduction for Ryan’s guilty plea overly lenient, given that he was caught red-handed. It reconvened to decide the proper sentence. The supplemental judgment addressed that question only; it did not revisit separate submissions about the prosecution’s obligations at sentencing.
At the further hearing, the court recognised that Ryan indicated his guilty plea at an early stage. He made full admissions when interviewed by gardaí shortly after his arrest, entered a signed guilty plea in the District Court and never sought to withdraw it. The court said this saved the prosecution from preparing for trial and deserved greater weight than a plea entered much later. However, because he was caught red-handed and the prospect of avoiding conviction was remote, the circumstances limited the credit due for the plea.
The court also considered reports that Ryan had been a model prisoner. It gave his prison record some weight, but said it was not entitled to great weight, taking account of his serious previous conviction and the limited prospect of rehabilitation at the time of the original sentencing. It also said the combined effect of mitigation and any suspended portion should not exceed the proper allowance for relevant factors, and that Ryan could not claim mitigation based on a clean or minor record.
The court set nine years as the minimum sentence reflecting the seriousness of the offence. It concluded that reductions of more than two years for the guilty plea and prison record were not justified. It allowed the appeal and substituted a seven-year term for the sentence imposed by the trial judge.